


Adages

by renneroo



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 16:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renneroo/pseuds/renneroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vignette about all the wisdom people tried to teach Lizzie that she never really took hold of until it was too late. Basically, the musings of Lizzie post-Pemberley and post Lydia- incident but pre- things coming back together and being okay</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adages

Lizzie Bennet had grown tired of adages and proverbs long ago. Perhaps it was her mother’s perpetual use of archaic nuggets of wisdom which bore no real life application for any woman living in the twenty-first century. Or maybe it was her father’s way of using them when his girls were little and very much in trouble. It was his way of imparting the wisdom and knowledge for them to learn from their mistakes. Lizzie, with far more of a propensity to feel offended and hurt and guilty and overwhelmed by shame and anger at herself and her father and his stupid platitudes, tended to make her best attempts to ignore them completely. It could’ve been the times that Charlotte, with all the intentions of a good friend, instead of letting her vent and just let it all out, would do her best to help her friend remember to stay grounded. Some days, she really hated being grounded almost as much as she hated those stupid sayings. 

She hated them more the day that she realized that they were right.

_Don’t judge a book by its cover._

At first, George Wickham had possessed such a lovely cover. He seemed wonderfully handsome and charming and carefree. He was exactly the guy you’re supposed to date when you’re young and looking for a relationship but not a long-term commitment. William Darcy, it was quite immediately decided on the part of Lizzie Bennet and a host of others, could only be deemed haughty and uncongenial on all counts. In the wake of the utter disaster that had befallen the Bennets due to George Wickham and the scrawled, cursive words on wax-sealed paper that still remained stuffed inside the front cover of her planner, Lizzie Bennet could only feel as though her world had been turned upside down because the truth was that absolutely nothing was what she thought it was. George Wickham used and abused. William Darcy was…everything she never could have imagined. He was a brilliant and caring employer to everyone at Pemberley Digital. He was a protective caregiver- it had taken Lizzie more than a while to realize that more than anything else on the planet, family mattered to Darcy. For him, the young man who had lost his parents so much sooner than he should have, family was something more valuable than all of his assets combined. It was the one thing you couldn’t put a price on.She had just been so wrong on so many counts and in so many ways that she questioned her ability to be right ever again.

_Pride comes before the fall._

She hadn’t been right about Lydia either. She had thought that she knew exactly how to run Lydia’s life in the way that was best for Lydia. The road to hell is paved with good intentions though, and the birthday present had been too much, as if Lizzie’s never-ending condescending remarks on Lydia to the vast internet weren’t enough. Her attempts to navigate her relationship with her sister the way she thought best only accomplished what she seemed to be best at these days- pushing people out of her life. She had to think that if she had at any point in the past stopped and looked at her relationship with Lydia that they might not be here. She wondered if Lydia never would’ve run off to Vegas. If George never would’ve come back into the picture. If everyone could’ve been saved the pain. She didn’t have all the answers. She had learned that in the aftermath. Prime directive: non-interference.

_You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone._

Lizzie thought about what her life would be like and who she would be now if she had acted differently six months ago. Her family would be as dysfunctionally happy as they had always been- with her mother worrying unnecessarily about trifling things while Mr. Bennet rolled his eyes and enjoyed the company of his three girls. Jane would be, once again, all smiles and sweetness, and most likely wearing an engagement ring. Lydia would be unscarred and energetic. If only Lizzie’s student loans were still the worst of her problems. Maybe Darcy wouldn’t hate her now- hate her for all she had said and done and then showing up, basically at his front door, once again. Maybe if she had seen the taciturn nature as shyness instead of pride, she would’ve said yes when he walked into Charlotte’s office with his oddly dapper wardrobe and his over-rehearsed words. Maybe she would be getting ready to go out and have dinner with a man who was intelligent enough to converse on matters of modern media and literature and debate in a way that wasn’t hurtful or mean or anything but a lively and intellectually stimulating debate. Maybe she would be sipping wine across the table from a man who looked at her as though she had set his world spinning into motion for the first time. Her head swam with possibilities or all the things that once were possible.

They rang in her head. She wondered if she had perhaps listened to them earlier, it would have saved her from all of this. If she could have managed to avoid all the mistakes she had made in the last year. If she could have saved things- her sisters, her family, herself.


End file.
